SATA Clean Cook Stove Project-Ghana
The Sata Clean Cook Stoves are Improved Cook Stoves produced locally by adopting traditional designs made from locally available materials such as metal sheet, clay and sawdust.
Background
The use of wood and charcoal as a source of cooking energy had declined over the years compared to the 1980’s. However due to increase population, rural urban migration and the high cost of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) there has been a rise in the use of wood and charcoal especially Charcoal as most LPG cooking cylinder owners have now resorted to the use of traditional cooking stoves which emit a lot of smoke.
Three quarters of Ghana‘s energy demand is met through wood and charcoal. Per capita use of coal is around 180kg every year and the total annual consumption reaches around 700,000tons. To produce a single kilo of charcoal, around 6kg of wood is needed.
This means our forest are being depleted at a faster rate as the consumption of more charcoal and wood occurs. Already, the forest is struggling to cope with illegal mining which has destroyed most of it. Deforestation is occuring at a much quicker rate than the forest is growing, resulting in an ever decreasing forest stock.
The Sata Clean CookStove Project is to compliment efforts being made over the years to get more people to switch to cleaner cooking. The use of inefficient cook stoves presents not just an environmental problem but also causes a range of serious health problems. Women and children are particularly vulnerable due to their high amount of time spent in cooking. The inhalation of smoke from the stoves is equivalent to smoking two packets of cigarettes per wz.d/’ay and can lead to serious respiratory illnesses. Respiratory illnesses are responsible for about 22,000 adult deaths every year. Smoke can also cause damage to eyesight and stunt the growth of children.
The Context
Sata Clean CookStove Project is to produce Improved Cook Stove that burns less Charcoal.
The project seeks to not only manufacture and supply improved Cook Stoves but to also add an intensive educational campaign on the benefits of using improved Cook Stoves.
Most End users knows improved Cook Stoves saves them money but stops short of the environmental benefits and how the simple use of this improved Cook Stoves can save our planet by cutting down the emission of CO2. We strongly believe once they buy into this idea and become ambassadors, they can easily convince others to switch to Cleaner Cooking and also paved the way for sosphicated Clean Cooking Stoves in future as failure to let them know of the environmental benefits will make the penetration of such stoves in futuredifficult because some consider the use of inefficient Cooking Stoves as part of their traditional practices.
Mission of the Project
This project will make available improved Cook stoves to households to replace the traditional cook stoves and Coal pots that consume a lot of Charcoal and wood; in effect it reduces the use of such fuels from 30% to 50%. This will in turn reduce carbon dioxide emissions and deforestation.
The project aims to sell 250,000 to 400,000 improved Cook stoves within the 5years in the Ghanaian market and with additional number of stoves being sold in other neighbouring countries to double this target.
The Advantages
This project will not only help mitigate the fight against Climate Change by the reduction in the use of charcoal ( which will help slow deforestation to manageable levels) but it will go a long way in attaining some critical Sustainable Development Goals like Good Health through reduction in the inhalation of smoke levels to cut down on respiratory diseases. The improved Stoves will reduce the use of Charcoal fuel saving households their hard earned disposable income. We intend to also create over 350 jobs to improve livelihoods by boosting the local economy.
Research and Development (R& D)
We have a strong R&D which will be carrying out more studies on our project and also develop other improved Cook stoves with inputs from End-Users.
Future Plans
We would like to establish one additional production site and set up 5 marketing and distribution centres across the country within our first year of implementation.
We also plan of exporting our tested production and marketing model to more countries through partnerships and franchising.
We aim to start entering neighbouring countries like the Burkina Faso and Mali to the North, Ivory Coast, Liberia and Sierra Leone to the West and Togo, Benin and Nigeria to the East within our first 2 years one at a time to establish our presence across West Africa.
Updates:
A bigger workshop is under construction to enable the scaling up of this project. It is will be completed by the ending of September, 2019.
